The late-night characters of Primavera Festival Barcelona
- Text by Shelley Jones
- Photography by Ella Ackroyd
Barcelona’s Parc Del Forum – an architectural events space built for the 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures – popped off last night for the first night of Primavera, one of Europe’s best curated music festivals.
Highlights of the night included a frenetic performance from Tyler The Creator, where loads of white people threw some questionable shapes, and a tripped out set by Electric Wizard, where loads of white people threw the horns.
But among the great music and attractive Europeans – it’s like an advert for a new perfume marketed around teenage fun – there were some festival legends doing their own thing. Here’s a little taster of what you can expect to see after dark, and ten Heinekens, and whatever else.
The Stagz
So there are a lot of these lads stumbling around trying to find birds, and booze, and more birds, and their mate who’s about to get married and is handcuffed to a security guard. For some unfathomable reason every group of stags this year is wearing a red trilby with the word ‘Barcelona’ around it (see below). I imagine there is some sort of message board where the stags of the world gather to arrange these things and the level of cheeky Nando’s banter that goes down there must be off the rofl chain.
Joker With A Tree
He jumped over a fence, scratched his knee, lost his phone (and his mates) and almost got thrown out, BUT, look (!!!) now he has a bit of shit tree that will get obfuscate everyone’s view for the whole night. You wave your nature wang man, you’re living the dream.
The Poet
She came for the music, okay, and she’s annoyed that everyone’s talking (and puking) when Tobias Jesso Jr is singing about his checkered-shirt feelings. Luckily, she brought the collected works of Camus and she can sit and read it in the dark and make notes in the margins.
Misc Psychedelic Rager
So this guy took acid in the seventies and has been on one ever since. You can find him at every festival ever, but how he makes money, or was able to put his T-shirt on this morning, or can walk, is a mystery. He will tell you about shape-shifters and the Dark Side Of The Rainbow conspiracy and you will smile nicely and walk backwards slowly until you can hit a run and get the fuck out of there.
The PDA Couple
Guys. No. Just no. Most of us are single, depressed, trying to get drunk and find someone to nurse us through the lonely 5am zombie walk back to the Gothic Quarter (which took us 2.5 hours last night, fyi). You don’t even deserve to be at a festival, go get a cottage in the Lake District and make a baby. Leave us vampires to it. And, if you snog intensely next to me at any part of the shenanigans tonight I am going to pants you.
The Lone Tuscan Raider
You, my friend, have gone to another planet. Good luck. I’m proud of you. I think it’s safe to say you’ve forgotten about those emails you had to send and that spreadsheet you had to complete. Which was the entire point, right? Mission accomplished.
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